Islam and (Non)violence

A lot has been written on the supposed link between Islam and violence, with a good portion of the output unfortunately consisting of crude Islamophobic tracts. Individuals like Pamela Geller and Daniel Pipes have made it a full-time crusade to inveigh against Islam. Leading evangelists such as Pat Robertson and Franklin Graham have spoken of Islam in the crudest possible terms. Some politicians have pandered subtly – and not so subtly – to the anti-Islam prejudices of many in their base.^{Footnote 1} Hollywood and television have contributed their share. The spotlight on Islam and violence has not dimmed due to various global conflicts and because of terrorist plots (mostly unsuccessful) in the United States.

The incessant drumbeat of negative news about Muslims has had a deep impact. A September 2007 Pew poll discovered that 35% of Americans possessed an “unfavorable” perception of Muslims. An August 2007 Financial Times/Harris Poll found that 21% of Americans consider the presence of Muslims in this country as a national security threat, with another one-fifth “not sure.”

Most disturbingly, a 2006 USA Today/Gallup poll revealed that 39% of Americans wanted Muslims to hold special identification cards. The same poll found that almost half of Americans feel that Muslims are extremists. Nearly one-fourth would not want a Muslim as a neighbor. Less than half think that Muslims would stand the test of loyalty to the United States. Positive views of Muslims increase if an American knows a Muslim personally.

These are astonishing numbers and may be understating the problem, since the honesty of people with pollsters on such sensitive issues is open to question. And such opinions are not going away. An April 2009 Washington Post/ABC poll found that 48% hold an unfavorable view of Islam. Nearly three in ten Americans thought that Islam encourages violence against non-Muslims, double such an opinion a year after the devastating terrorist attacks. The perception problem continues. A USA Today/Gallup poll in March 2011 found that almost three in ten Americans think Muslim Americans to be indulgent toward Al Qaeda, a startling figure given that the organization is possibly the most reviled entity in the world.

The repercussions of such prejudices have sometimes been serious. Several individuals have been murdered in the United States on account of anti-Arab and anti-Muslim feelings. Many mosques have been desecrated or vandalized, while there has been widespread and vociferous opposition to proposals for Islamic religious centers all over the country (the most famous being the agitation against the Manhattan interfaith center near the World Trade Center site).

This distrust has been reflected at the official level, with, for example, the New York Police Department engaging in a massive spying operation on Muslim establishments and religious centers. In October 2009, four members of Congress held a press conference to accuse a prominent Muslim organization of placing spies in congressional offices. GOP lawmakers have spearheaded anti-Shariah law campaigns in several states, making an issue of a nonexistent problem. House Homeland Security Committee Chairman Congressman Peter King has held a series of hearings singling out Muslim Americans. And to take just one outrageous example of religious profiling, Minnesota Congresswoman Michele Bachmann and four other Republican lawmakers in 2012 groundlessly accused Huma Abedin, a close Hillary Clinton aide, of having ties to the Muslim Brotherhood and asked the State Department to investigate her.

Even members of Congress have not been immune from such attacks. Representative Keith Ellison, the first Muslim American to be elected to Congress has come under fire. The rightwing blogosphere attacked him as a radical in disguise. Even a couple of Ellison's colleagues derided their new associate. Representative Virgil Goode of Virginia warned in a letter to hundreds of voters that Ellison's election was a threat to the country's traditions. Representative Bill Sali of Idaho opined that having a Muslim member of Congress wasn’t what the Founding Fathers had envisioned. “It has become much more respectable to assert that the Muslim faith turns people violent,” says the Economist. “There are political as well as theological reasons why Western debates on the nature of Islam are so charged. If it can be shown that Islam itself is anti-freedom and pro-violence, then it makes less sense to take Muslim opinion into account when deciding policy. If you can prove that ‘they hate us whatever we do,’ all efforts to assuage Islamic sentiment are futile.”^{Footnote 2}

It has never been more important to understand Islam and its followers. According to a recent Pew report, roughly one in four people in the world practices Islam. There are more than 1.5 billion Muslims around the world, making Islam second only to Christianity as a global religion. Contrary to notions held by many people, two out of three Muslims are Asian, not Arab. An astonishing 38 million are in Europe (the ninth largest group globally), while 2.5 million Muslims are Americans. “The Pew Forum study depicts the world's second-largest religion as complex and nuanced, challenging the notion that its trajectory is defined by a minority of Islamists,” reports the British Guardian (Reference BeaumontBeaumont, 2009).

By the very nature of media coverage, the violent acts of a few Muslims have dominated the public space. Too few have asked the question as to whether there are qualities in Islam that make it compatible with nonviolence, and whether there are instances in history – and especially the modern world – that show this to be true.

This void needs to be filled. We have to urgently dispel the unfair stereotype that has been attached to Islam: that it is intrinsically violent, and so are its adherents. My research provides a rebuttal to the general misperceptions of Islam by showing that the tradition of nonviolence within Islam has been rich.

Nonviolence is the right path to pursue regardless of religious affiliation. Obviously, it occupies the ethical high ground. And a comprehensive study has shown that nonviolent resistance is not only the morally superior choice, it is also twice as effective as the violent variety. That's the startling and reassuring discovery by Maria Stephan and Erica Chenoweth, who analyzed an astonishing 323 resistance campaigns from 1900 to 2006.

“Our findings show that major nonviolent campaigns have achieved success 53% of the time, compared with 26% for violent resistance campaigns,” the authors note in the journal International Security (Reference Stephan and ChenowethStephan & Chenoweth, 2008: 7).

The reason for choosing nonviolence hence becomes easier: It is much more successful than its violent counterpart as a means of social change, apart from being the honorable choice.

Obviously, for Muslims, too, nonviolence would be the best way to go. But have adherents of Islam chosen to take that route? The debate begins with the very name of the religion itself. Does Islam mean submission to peace, as defenders of the religion claim? Or is it the attainment of peace through submission to the will of God, surely a different thing? The standard Muslim greeting is Salaam ale-kum, or peace be upon you. Does the conduct of the religion live up to its catchphrase?

The sources of Islam

My journey of exploration starts with the founder of the religion, the Prophet Muhammad, and Islam's holy book, the Qur’an.

The prophet is a role model for devout Muslims. In support of the fact that Islam places an emphasis on nonviolence, scholars point to the conduct of the Prophet Muhammad in Mecca. For twelve long years, he endured persecution in that city without fighting back, emphasizing instead the virtues of forbearance (sabr) and patience.

Famed Egyptian writer Alaa al-Aswany cites repeated stories of Muhammad's compassion toward children. “How can anyone use the same prophet's name to kill?” asks al-Aswany. “You can see clearly there has been a terrible interpretation of Islam” (Reference MishraMishra, 2008).

The notion of emigration as a form of nonviolent protest is central to Islam and is hallowed among Muslims, since they believe that by doing so they are following in the footsteps of Muhammad and his companions. The flight, or hijrah, of the prophet and his followers from Mecca to Medina constitutes a pivotal moment in the religion. As early as the eighth century, Muslims like those of the Khawarij community took this concept to heart, emigrating from their homeland to avoid being annihilated. Many centuries later, those Muslims who went to Pakistan from India during the partition of the subcontinent were called muhajir, since they believed they had engaged in the act of hijrah, or emigration, to preserve their faith.

Even after his emigration to Medina, Muhammad often used skilful diplomacy instead of warfare to placate his enemies. And when he triumphantly re-entered Mecca, he forgave the inhabitants instead of taking revenge. There are other instances in his life that have him engaged in peacemaking and conflict arbitration, important episodes to build upon. The founder of Islam – the most venerated figure in Muslim history – provides a guide map to embark on the path of nonviolence.

“The traditional biographies make it clear that even though the first ummah had to fight in order to survive, Muhammad did not achieve victory by the sword but by a creative and ingenious policy of nonviolence,” writes esteemed comparative scholar Karen Armstrong:

The last time Muhammad preached to the community before his death, he urged Muslims to use their religion to reach out to others in understanding, since all human beings were brothers: ‘O men: behold we have created you all out of a male and a female, and have made you into nations and tribes so that you may know one another’ (cited in Reference NooraniNoorani, 2003: 73–74).

As for Islam's holy book, we enter into the realm of endless debate about its contents and about which particular passages take precedence. The Qur’an clearly contains, however, several verses forbidding aggression. “The Qur’an is adamantly opposed to the use of force in religious matters,” writes Armstrong. “Its vision is inclusive, it recognizes the validity of all rightly guided religion, and praises all the great prophets of the past” (Reference Abu-NimerAbu-Nimer, 2003: 42).

There are many verses in the Qur’an that command believers to be nice with others. Among the recommended qualities are love, kindness, affection, forgiveness, and mercy. The Qur’an also underscores that forgiveness for an ill deed is a much nobler quality than revenge. A corollary to this is the emphasis on performing good deeds toward everyone, not just Muslims. So, there are several passages in the Qur’an enjoining aggression. One such verse says, “You will continue to uncover treachery from all but a few of them, but be forgiving and pardon, for God loves the kindly” [5:13]. Another says, “Only argue nicely with the People of the Book, except with the oppressors among them. Say: We believe in what has been revealed to us and revealed to you. Our God and your God is one, and it is Him to whom we surrender” [29:46]. Yet another verse with a similar sentiment is: “Say: I believe in what God has revealed from a book and have been commanded to be just among you. Allah is our Lord and your Lord. We have our works and you have yours. There is no argument between us and you. God will bring us together, for the journey is to Him” [42:15].

“The attitude of these verses toward opponents to Muhammad's program, whether idolaters or Jews and whether at the earliest period of his mission in Mecca or after the transition to Medina, remains constant,” writes Reuven Firestone. “Muhammad is commanded to argue with his opponents kindly but effectively and to have patience. Hints are provided suggesting that his opponents might receive punishment at the hand of God, but it was not the role of Muhammad or the Muslim community to inflict punishment or to escalate the conflict” (Reference FirestoneFirestone, 1999: 76).

And there are strict rules of conduct for warfare, with, for example, restrictions on harming children, women, and old men. The first caliphs are said to have conducted themselves according to these rules.

Muslims consider the Hadith, the preachings and deeds of Muhammad that have been passed down over time, second to the Qur’an in importance. There are many commendations of nonviolence within Hadith literature, too. A Hadith quotation clearly states: “I am the enemy of any who injures non-Muslims. And whomever I am the enemy to, I will reckon with him on Judgment Day,” while another Hadith quote says: “Whenever violence enters into something, it disgraces it, and whenever ‘gentle-civility’ enters into something it graces it. Truly, God bestows on account of gentle conduct what he does not bestow on account of violent conduct.”

Such references in the Qur’an and the Hadith demonstrate the place of nonviolence within Islam.

The spread of Islam

The nature of the spread of Islam has generated controversy. Critics charge that the conversion of people to Islam often occurred at the point of a sword. Reality was quite different, however. Contrary to stereotype, the message of Islam was often extended peacefully by Sufi orders.

Scholars like Khalid Kishtainy assert that even the supposed military prowess of the Arabs and their achievements of conquest immediately after the advent of Islam are exaggerated. The empires they defeated and conquered, such as the Persian and the Byzantine, were already exhausted. The Arabs never had a military class, unlike the Prussians in Germany, the Samurais in Japan, or the Rajputs in India. Instead, the elite was of a merchant nature. Even the behavior of the Arabs after their conquest was not that of a militaristic people. Instead, Baghdad became known as a center of learning and the finer arts. And their behavior toward the conquered populations was far from harsh. “Why were the Muslim conquerors relatively benign?” asks author Zachary Karabell: “The Qur’an instructed the Muslims to respect the People of the Book, and that is precisely what they did. The early history of Islam, therefore, unfolded against the backdrop of toleration for the religions of the conquered” (Reference Karabell2009: 29).

So, several studies have shown that the hackneyed stereotypes of Islam being spread by coercion and violence widely miss the mark. Instead, the process was a gradual assimilative one: “We see an important process of fusion here as Islamic culture gradually absorbed ambient cultures, traditions, languages, arts, histories, and experiences, making Islam part of the region rather than merely an Arabian import imposed on the area,” writes Graham Fuller. “It is this deep integration of Islamic culture into the most ancient region of civilizations in the world that suggests in many ways a continuum, a continuity of large numbers of values, attitudes, and attributes” (Reference FullerFuller, 2010: 91).

Jihad and Islam

The notion of jihad in Islam is an extremely controversial one, and is something that has to be grappled with. There is no denying the fact that religiously inspired violence has captured the headlines when it comes to Islam. In actuality, the notion of jihad has very complex overtones. The word jihad itself means to strive or to struggle. This may be a struggle against your own evil proclivities or for the sake of Islam, nonviolently or violently: “Jihad is a verbal noun of the third Arabic form of the root jahada, which is defined classically as ‘exerting one's utmost power, efforts, endeavors, or ability in contending with an object of disapprobation.’ Such an object is often categorized in the literature as deriving from one of three sources: a visible enemy, the evil, and aspects of one's own self. There are, therefore, many kinds of jihad, and most have nothing to do with warfare” (Reference FirestoneFirestone, 1999: 17).

As examples, Firestone cites “ jihad of the heart” that involves struggles against your own sinful inclinations, and “jihad of the tongue,” which requires speaking good and banishing evil. And what will astonish a lot of people is that the term jihad is used in Arabic to describe the best-known nonviolent movement in history: the Gandhi-led Indian independence struggle.

Importantly, in Islam, there is a distinction between jihadi akbar (the greater jihad) and jihadi asghar (the lesser jihad). Jihadi akbar incorporates the struggle against the baser instincts within oneself, such as the temptations of worldliness, and the pursuit of righteousness through elevating the consciousness of God within oneself. It encompasses a whole range of things, from the dissemination of knowledge and wisdom to the removal of evil and fighting against social negatives such as injustice, poverty, and illiteracy.

Jihadi asghar is the one that is better known globally and is the way of fighting. But even here, there are rules. Islam and its jurists have very often allowed only defensive warfare: “Permission to take up arms is given to those against whom war is made because they have been wronged” [Qur’an 22:40]. The Qur’an says that Muslims should defend themselves against those who have “driven you out from your homes, but kindness must be shown to those who have not attacked first” [60:9]. And then there are the rules of war: It can only be declared by a legitimate authority, the enemy must refuse to reach a truce or to accept Islam, no non-combatants can be attacked, and plants and wildlife can’t be harmed. Plus, no sites of worship – including churches and synagogues – can be attacked.

Pacifist Muslim sects

Several branches of Islam have exhibited a pacifist bent. The most famous of these are the Sufis, whose pacifism and tolerance are acknowledged even by many critics of Islam. Sufism has played a big part in the Islam of South, Southeast, and Central Asia, and hence it is baffling that this aspect of the religion has been almost completely ignored in the United States. Either it has not been acknowledged to exist, or if it has, it's been treated as something that is extraneous to the religion. This is not true. Sufism has been an integral part of Islam since its founding, and Sufis are responsible for the spread of Islam. For instance, among one of the largest concentrations of Muslims in the world – Bengali Muslims in current Bangladesh plus the Indian state of West Bengal – the seeds of Islam in remote rural communities were most often laid by wandering Muslim mystics of whom the local population became enamored because of their reputations for being miracle-workers. When the Sufi departed, the mosque remained behind, turning the community over time into a Muslim one.

The impact of Sufism can be seen everywhere in South Asia. Shrines of Sufi saints, equally popular among Hindus and Muslims alike, dot the Indian subcontinent. These shrines are an amazing testament to religious harmony, with people from all faiths and walks of life visiting them in an act of nonsectarian piety. The fact that the guardians of the tombs – as well as those buried within – are Muslims is irrelevant to the legions who come to pay their respects and offer decorative cloth as a mark of reverence.

The Sufis don’t have different principles from other Muslims; they just differ in their emphasis. For instance, a central concept for Sufis is tawhid, or unity, which can be taken to mean the unity of mankind and of existence, not just of Muslims. An extension of this outlook is the Sufi emphasis on peace. At the core of Sufism is a message of peace, love, and tolerance. “My brothers, you must … try to heal the sufferings of the world,” said M. R. Bawa Muhaiyaddeen, a Sufi mystic who died in 1986 but whose preaching still has a global following: “We should not carry a sword in our hands; we should hold patience in our hearts. We should not arm ourselves with guns; we should be armed with contentment. We should not put our trust in battles; we should have trust in God … These are the true weapons of Islam” (Reference Muhaiyaddeen, Funk, Kadayifici and SaidMuhaiyaddeen, 2001: 274).

There are other lesser-known Muslim sects, too, such as the Ahmadiyyas (controversial among some Muslims for a number of reasons), that have concentrated on the pacifist aspects of the religion.^{Footnote 3} The Ahmadiyyas hold up Muhammad as a role model for nonviolence, citing his behavior in Mecca and his migration to Medina as a mark of nonviolent protest. Despite continued torment by their opponents, Muhammad and his followers remained nonviolent. But then the persecution transgressed all limits, and God finally gave permission to fight. The Ahmadiyyas say that the verse – the foundation of jihad – that he received permitting him to fight set strict limits. The Ahmadiyyas point to the multiple treaties and agreements that Muhammad negotiated as proof of his peaceful nature, particularly with the Meccans. “Much is seen [by the Ahmadiyyas] in Muhammad's ‘reconciliation of hearts,’ his policy of appeasement on his return to Mecca, in which he issued a general amnesty to all people,” writes Simon Valentine in another book on the community (Reference Valentine2008: 201–202).

The fact that founder Mirza Ghulam Ahmad felt that his interpretation was the one based on the only correct interpretation of the Islamic texts – and that he arrogated to himself in the role of the mahdi or the messiah the only person capable of a proper reading – made the Ahmadiyya doctrine unacceptable to a lot of other Muslims. But there are millions of Ahmadiyyas around the world who take seriously Ahmad's words, including his preaching about nonviolence.

The Pashtun pacifists

Then, we come to large-scale applications of nonviolence in modern Muslim societies. One of the most remarkable examples of nonviolent resistance in history that has been almost completely ignored in the West is that of Khan Abdul Ghaffar “Badshah” Khan and his movement. Khan, a Pashtun friend of Gandhi, founded a peace force of more than 100,000 Pashtuns dedicated to social reform and nonviolent protest in the area of the world currently most closely associated with terrorism – the Pakistan-Afghanistan border. Nicknamed the “Frontier Gandhi” for his association with the Mahatma, Khan, who had the same ethnicity (and grew up in the same area) as the Taliban, nevertheless drew much more inspiration from the Qur’an and the Prophet Muhammad than from Mohandas. In spite of massive repression by the British, Khan and his followers kept to their creed. The movement had as its bedrock principles nonviolence, societal reform, religious tolerance, social justice, and women's rights.

For Khan, Islam's core was nonviolence. When I spoke to Khan's daughter-in-law and grandson a few years ago for an article for The Progressive, both of them stressed the importance of Islam in Khan's worldview and mentioned Gandhi only in passing.

Gandhian Muslims

Khan was far from the only Muslim to be associated with the Gandhian struggle for Indian freedom. There were several others.

The most prominent of these was Maulana Abul Kalam Azad, a highly respected scholar and theologian who headed Gandhi's Congress Party for a number of years. In sovereign India, he rose to the highest ranks of government, being appointed by Jawaharlal Nehru as education minister. Another Gandhian Muslim, Zakir Husain, earned such stature as an educationist that he was chosen as the third President of independent India. Both Azad and Husain were devout Muslims who saw no contradiction between their faith and pluralism and nonviolence. And they were just the most prominent ones. There were several others who joined with Gandhi and remained faithful to Gandhian principles. Such life stories are completely unknown outside India.

Gandhi himself was influenced by Islam. He followed a strand of Hinduism that with its emphasis on service and on poetry and songs bore similarities to Sufi Islam. Gandhi's family was very open-minded, and Gandhi had an assortment of friends from various religious backgrounds since a young age. His mother, Putlibai, though a Hindu, belonged to the syncretic Pranami sect, which drew a lot from Islam. When Gandhi went to South Africa to work as a lawyer, he came to know well a number of Muslims, such as his employer, a Muslim-owned business firm. It was here that he launched his first campaign, against discrimination toward Asians in that country – a category that included both Hindus and Muslims. Gandhi attempted to bond both communities together, and tried to come up with a Hindu equivalent of jihad defined in the most rightful way. The result was satyagraha (a term now globally famous)^{Footnote 4} literally meaning truth force, but having connotations of civil disobedience. He never gave up his idea of “heart unity” between Hindus and Muslims, and his last fast was impelled in good part as a protest against the forced exodus of Muslims from Delhi. He was assassinated in January 1948 by a Hindu extremist for allegedly being too pro-Muslim.

Gandhi studied the work of Muslim reformer Shibli Numani and through him the lives of early Muslim leaders to understand how to combine piety with creative action. For him, Muslim extremism was based on “a corrupt understanding of Islam.” “Islam is not a false religion,” he said. “Let Hindus study it reverently, and they will love it even as I do” (quoted in Reference Dallmayr and AllenDallmayr 2009: 156–157). Gandhi was adept at using Islamic imagery to inspire Muslims. He thought Prophet Muhammad's struggles akin to the efforts of the Hindu God Ram to set up a new society. He compared Muhammad's exodus to Medina to India's independence campaign. And he cited the martyrdom of Hassan and Hussain, the grandsons of Muhammad, comparing them to the Hindu notions of self-sacrifice and renunciation. (At a gathering in Baghdad in 2010, Iraqi Member of Parliament Ali al-Allaq proudly noted Gandhi's invocation of Hussein, proving for the umpteenth time the incredible resonance of a good example.) The impact of Islam on Gandhi is a sadly neglected area of inquiry.

Nonviolence in the Middle East

Nonviolence has been tried even in a part of the Muslim world that has seemed to be perhaps the most impervious to this perspective in recent times: the Middle East.

One such example is Egypt in the early part of the twentieth century, when mass agitation in the form of strikes, boycotts, and petitions forced the British to abandon the protectorate arrangement and grant Egypt limited self-independence in 1922. An obsequious 1948 treaty signed by Iraqi Prime Minister Salih Jabr with the British led to a predominantly nonviolent uprising that brought about the government's resignation.

Another little-known instance of a successful modern nonviolent movement in the Arab region is a 1985 mass revolt in the Sudan that toppled the government of Jafar Numeiri.

The 1979 Iranian Revolution that ousted the Shah was, contrary to popular notions, almost completely a nonviolent one, with nearly all the violence coming from the Shah's security forces. The anti-Shah forces comprised a broad spectrum of society, ranging from workers and students to intellectuals and clerics (that the mullahs hijacked the movement later is another matter) and engaged in a vast array of devices to topple the king, including strikes, civil disobedience, and massive rallies. “A month later, at the end of the fasting month of Ramadan, one hundred thousand people poured into the streets, the first of the grand marches against the Shah,” writes Nobel Peace laureate Shirin Ebadi in her memoir Iran Awakening. “An ocean of Iranians as far as the eye could see filled the wide boulevards of Tehran and raised their voices against the Shah” (Reference EbadiEbadi, 2006: 33).

Beleaguered from all sides, a nonviolent resistance movement also formed in Iraq to resist the US occupation. This nascent coalition comprised of a loose network of civil society organizations, unions in the oil sector, women's groups, and students. Despite being outgunned and largely ignored in the US media, such entities persisted in their peaceful resistance to the US presence in Iraq.

A hugely inspirational pro-democracy movement in the recent past has been in Iran, with a mass nonviolent uprising – the Green Movement – daring to take on the government after a questionable presidential election in 2009. While the movement did not emerge victorious, it managed to persist in the face of intense repression, changing the Iranian political landscape and earning admiration from around the world in the process. The election of the reformist candidate, Hassan Rouhani, in 2013 as the President of Iran was, in some sense, a vindication of the Green Movement's goals and aspirations.

Palestinian nonviolence

The nonviolent aspect of the First Palestinian Intifada has been all but forgotten due to the extensive violence of the second one. But the Palestinian uprising in the late 1980s and the early 1990s was predominantly nonviolent, with the significant and controversial exception of stone throwing at Israeli security forces.

Several groups were responsible for coordinating and putting into effect the nonviolent strategies that marked this phase. Perhaps most remarkable in a highly patriarchal society was the pivotal role played by women's groups, which engaged in much-needed organizing, even though women were denied leadership positions. Several other civil society organizations also played important functions. All of these various segments of society got together and engaged in a gamut of actions – ranging all the way from noncooperation and boycott of Israeli goods to tax resistance, mock funerals, demonstrations, road-blocking, and graffiti campaigns.

Mohammed Abu Nimer contends that even though the movement was nationalist in character, Islam played an important role in various ways. Palestinians drew on the religion to make sacrifices for the movement. The leadership of the Intifada used religious symbols to inspire its workers. Mosques were utilized as sites of mobilization. And the movement took inspiration from the egalitarian nature of Islam to fashion a nonhierarchical grassroots movement.

The spirit of nonviolence continues today. In the most significant example, Palestinian protesters in the village of Bilin have been engaging in weekly demonstrations against the Israel–Palestine separation barrier. They won an Israeli Supreme Court decision in September 2007 that ordered a partial rerouting of the barrier to hand back confiscated farmland. When the Israeli government dragged its feet on implementing the judgment, the protests continued.

South Asian movements

Modern South Asia also provides several examples of predominantly nonviolent uprisings successfully toppling dictators. One occurred back in 1969, when a popular movement in Pakistan forced military ruler Ayub Khan to step down. Another one, in Bangladesh in 1990, caused dictator Muhammad Ershad to abdicate and democracy to be restored. Yet, the most incredible instances have taken place in the recent past. An amazingly brave nonviolent movement occurred in Pakistan. It was precipitated by military ruler Pervez Musharraf's wanton dismissal in Cohen of the Supreme Court Chief Justice Iftikhar Mohammed Chaudhry. In response, lawyers’ groups and other segments of Pakistani civil society mounted a sustained peaceful agitation. The results were impressive, even in the face of the murders of dozens of protesters by Musharraf's allies (in the city of Karachi), and a massive bomb blast at a site where Chaudhry was due to give a speech. Musharraf was initially forced to accept a Supreme Court ruling when it reinstated Chaudhry as the chief justice, but then decided to dig in and crack down. He declared emergency rule and arrested thousands of lawyers, judges, and their allies in civil society. In fact, he reserved a fury for them that he didn’t show toward religious fundamentalist parties, subjecting the lawyers to massive detentions, beatings, and teargassing. But domestic and international pressure forced Musharraf to hold elections. The results vindicated the protesters, with Musharraf's party being decimated. The game was up. Musharraf held on to the presidency for a few more months, but eventually gave up in August 2008 and fled to England. Democracy was restored, and the protesters triumphed. When Benazir Bhutto's widower, Asif Ali Zardari, procrastinated on restoring some of the top judges, the lawyers came out again in force in early 2009 and forced him to reinstate them. Such a victory, twice over, may be unprecedented in recent times.

Pakistan is not the only Muslim country even in South Asia to have an inspirational ending in the past few years. In late 2008, in a little-known instance the people of the small Indian Ocean island nation of the Maldives brought down a tyrant, Maumoon Abdul Gayoom, after 30 years of his autocratic rule, the longest in Asia at that point in time. Mass peaceful mobilization by the opposition candidate, former political prisoner Mohamed Nasheed, helped ensure that Gayoom finally conceded when he lost the presidential election to Nasheed in October. Gayoom was no slouch in the repression department. Demonstrators were badly beaten by the police, and critics were sentenced to long years in prison. Nasheed himself was brutally tortured before being forced into exile. And yet he emerged triumphant. Sadly, Nasheed was ousted in a coup in 2012, and is still engaged in a political battle to regain the Presidential office that was usurped from him.

Arab Spring

Then, we come to the Arab Spring. The events encompassed in this phenomenon – breathtaking and millennial in their momentousness – have been maddeningly complicated. In two countries (Egypt and Tunisia), mostly nonviolent mass movements succeeded in toppling autocracies. In another (Libya), the uprising had to arm itself – and be aided by outside intervention – before it succeeded in ousting the country's dictator. In yet others (such as Syria and Bahrain), the rebellions – varying combinations of violence and nonviolence – have been stymied, for now at least.

What was undeniable was the willingness of Arabs to lay their lives and bodies on the line. The incident that set off the entire chain of events was the self-immolation of a Tunisian street vendor, Mohamed Bouazizi, in protest against the heavy-handedness and corruption of his government. His act of supreme sacrifice had an impact he could never have imagined. The world soon realized the earthshaking significance of the region-wide uprising. An indicator was the awarding of the Nobel Peace Prize in 2011 to Tawakkol Karman, the first Arab woman to receive the prize and the youngest recipient ever (she was born in 1979). The Nobel Prize “was a recognition from the world of the importance of the Yemeni revolution, of how peaceful the revolution has been, and of the importance of the Arab Spring revolutions,” Karman told me in an interview. “It was also a recognition of the role of women and youth in leading these changes” (Reference PalPal, 2013/2014). The Nobel was a gesture of appreciation for the contributions to the Arab Spring of previously overlooked segments of society. “It has made stronger the voices of Arab women and youth and also the voices of people who are fighting for freedom and dignity and democracy,” Karman said. “Our voices can now be heard on a global scale. We are now more radical in defending our freedoms and in constructing a peaceful nation and world” (Reference PalPal, 2013/2014).

The success of mass movements in Tunisia and Egypt (no matter what the subsequent complications in these nations) do signify something important, as Gene Sharp, a master strategist of nonviolence whose ideas were put into practice in the Arab Spring, told me: “The struggles in Tunisia and Egypt have demonstrated that the old preconceptions about nonviolent struggle are no longer valid. These cases demonstrate that nonviolent struggles are realistic and that they can be successful in a violent world” (Reference PalPal, 2011/2012).

Yes, things have become incredibly complicated. As history proves, though, positive change takes time. “It took nearly a decade between the first strikes in the Gdansk Shipyard and the fall of communism in Poland,” writes Reference ZunesStephen Zunes (2011). “Even reform movements within industrialized democracies can take years of struggle, such as the civil rights movement in the U.S. South.” Or as Chou En-Lai (perhaps apocryphally) said about the impact of the French Revolution: “It is too soon to tell.” The final chapter of the Arab Spring is yet to be written.

Conclusion

Gandhi, the ultimate icon of nonviolence, said: “My reading of the Qur’an has convinced me that the basis of Islam is not violence, but is unadulterated peace. It regards forbearance as superior to vengeance. The very word ‘Islam’ means peace, which is nonviolence” (Reference JahanbeglooJahanbegloo, 2009).

Islam, just like any other religion, has had its share of positives and negatives. The relentless focus on the negative has overwhelmed the positive aspects of the religion and its practitioners. This paper is a small contribution toward redressing that imbalance and highlighting the oft-neglected strain of nonviolence that is present within Islam.